After failing to appear in court, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have asked a federal judge to compel Elon Musk to testify. This is related to the SEC’s investigation of Musk’s 2022 purchase of Twitter, now X. It was filed that Musk “failed to appear for testimony on September 15th, 2023, as required by the investigative subpoena served by the SEC.”
“Instead, two days before his scheduled testimony, Musk abruptly notified the SEC’s staff that he would not appear. Musk attempted to justify his refusal to comply with the subpoena by raising, for the first time, several spurious objections, including an objection to San Francisco as an appropriate testimony location,” today’s filing reads.
The SEC launched an investigation in April 2022, seeking potential violations of various provision of federal securities laws connected to Musk’s purchase of Twitter stock. The subpoena “seeks Musk’s testimony to obtain information not already in the SEC’s possession that is relevant to its legitimate and lawful investigation.” Musk appeared for half-day sessions of testimony via videoconference in July 2022 twice. His last appearance was marked as July 27th, 2022.
This is not the only court docket Musk is involved in. His involvement in various lawsuits include the X trademark, $500 million severance from former Twitter employees, and a Twitter shareholder fraud case. He is also involved in the $250 million action from the National Music Publishers’ Association over unlicensed tunes used on X/Twitter.
A hearing for the new filing, that would have the court compel Musk to appear is set for November 9th, 2023.
